Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Awesome Trip to Wyoming w/ my son

As many of you know from my PREVIOUS POST my 12 yo son Samuel and I just got back from an amazing adventure in Wyoming. We traveled & hunted with friends Corey & his son Lewis from church, and the boys had buck pronghorn tags for area 26, an area listed as having tough access to public land. To add a little extra challenge we went the second week of the season after the bucks had been shot at plenty so were on high alert and hanging very close to private land boundaries.
Samuel won the coin toss as first shooter, and our learning curve started first thing Monday as we stalked National Grassland in the sunrise:


We journaled our many mistakes on that stalk and we quickly learned the huge difference between shooting pronghorn as we�d EXPERIENCED IN 2010 and hunting them, which was extremely exciting but full of huge ups & downs!
That evening we hit some �walk-in only� management land where Samuel sat and glassed but kept feeling like he was the one being watched:

On our way out he said to me, �You know with this waffle knit under my flannel shirt I feel like a hard core hunter!� Over the next few days he proved to be just that as we got plenty dirty, got quite a few cactus stickers in our palms, and continued the excitement & let-downs of these very visual stalks, crawling around the prairie.
On the second day our friends went out on a long, long stalk. As we waited by the van some energy workers drove by and told us of a couple of bucks on a nearby hillside that we decided to glass & Samuel decided it was time for a selfie:

Our friends� stalk which lasted over an hour yielded Lewis� first big game animal and we were extremely excited as you can imagine:

Lewis stalked and set up a 150 yd shot, waiting about 45 min for the unsuspecting buck to come into the open, and driving home a 95 gr Fusion from his .243 Win in a textbook-perfect quartering-to shot.
As we went down into the ravine where the buck had been I found a mule deer shed and couldn�t resist some artsy photography with Samuel�s �campfire special� .257 Roberts:

On Weds morning we ran across a small group feeding along a fenceline/property line on Nat�l Grassland and the stalk went over an hour and a half and ended with the undisturbed does leading the buck onto private,
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me with bloody knees and a son who was about finished with the ups and downs of pronghorn hunting and ready to head west to the Bighorns where we were to backpack in for elk & mule deer scouting. Sensing that he was burned out and feeling it myself, I admitted defeat. Along the way we�d stalked nearly a ten bucks, missing one of them 3x at the outside of the range Samuel�d practiced at, and passed by one that Samuel called a dink.

Cool.

Good pics and a good story.

Sorry it didn't work out as planned but success doesn't always mean it wasn't a successful hunt. I've had many good hunts where I didn't tag an animal.

Great writeup and pics of your adventures efw!

We excitedly headed for Buffalo where Samuel would see his first �real� mountains,



do his first real backpacking trip, and add some birds to his �life list,� as he has really gotten into bird watching and ornithology in the last year or so. We were too late to hike out that evening so we utilized a base camp a few miles from the mountaintop we planned to hike to. Thursday morning we made the 5 hr hike in, and along the way found some great elk & mule deer hunting areas with good sign:



and Samuel, with whom I�d practiced a little bit the last few months, did a great job in spite of uneven terrain, thin air, and a heavy pack.
Our mountaintop camp site was gorgeous with Samuel stepping up to build a firepit & put up the tent while I rested.


Our perch was perfect for relaxing and we ate meals there and watched for elk, which came around briefly that evening:
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Our goals had been to see some birds, mule deer, and elk hunting areas, and we accomplished it all that first day. Needless to say we were excited; Samuel added a total of 8 birds to his life list, what he called �the low-hanging fruit�. He wanted to spot a western dipper in the creek below so we planned to take an abandoned road that was on both the GPS & the map I�d gotten from DIYMAPS.com to the gorge below the next morning. We awoke early and enjoyed breakfast on �our rock�:
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And I just couldn�t resist a �farewell selfie�:


We were about a third of the way down the mountain when we realized that whatever road was recorded on the GPS & map was long gone. In between two shear rock cliffs was a long rock slide, and we had to navigate that. Honestly it was about the scariest thing I�ve ever done having my dear son with me and I realized on my way down that while I�d always figured that the worst thing that could happen to me would be for one of my children to get sick and suffer and die, I now realized that the one thing worse would be for one of them to die due to me making a stupid miscalculation like this. We held it together and got to the bottom one step at a time, and I hugged Samuel a little tighter than normal and we both hit our knees when we touched the road below giving thanks for safety.

It was so warm that I took off the bottom of my hiking pants and waded a bit in the stream, watching trout sip nymphs hatching on the surface wishing I�d have brought a rod! Samuel sought his dipper but never spotted one, saying that he was happy for a reason to return with the whole family.
We drove home all night Friday arriving Saturday afternoon. This was one of the most unforgettable experiences of my life, and I cannot express the gratitude I have for such an amazing son and the opportunity to share this unbelievable adventure with a safe return.

Along the way a waitress asked him if he was feeling ok when he said �thank you� for his food because, according to her, �kids never say that anymore!� Yesterday morning I received an email from his music teacher who is giving him a �respect� award this month.

To say that I am proud of this young man would be the understatement of the century. Words simply can't express my gratitude to God for allowing me the privilege of spending time with such a fantastic son in such an unbelievable place as Wyoming! We�ll be practicing hard to make sure that when we return (he asked me Sunday night when we�d go back, saying he was missing it already!) we don�t miss!

Thanks all for reading,

efw

Looks like a GREAT adventure ! Thanks for sharing.

Glad you had a great time. Good story, thanks!

Thank you for sharing! Great story and pictures.

Very cool, Eric. Nice write up of a great adventure with your son.

Thanks for sharing the story and pictures.

Thanks all; next up is a trip to Texas w/ my (soon to be) 10 yo Elijah. That'll be amazing as well I am sure!!

The time a man gets to spend with his son is a better treasure than all the gold in Ft. Knox.

quit trying to suck up to Travis. aviators, heh.

nice trip ;D

Awesome stuff there. Headed out with my two young sons in two days.

Looks like a great time. Thanks for the pics.

Great story Eric.

Thanks for a great story Eric! It appears to me you had a very successful hunting trip, mighty fine job.

Give me a call when you get rested, well go shootin'.

Good Stuff. Thanks.

Well done and well told!

Ed

Nice story Eric. The cool part is I recognize the scenery in some of your pics. Take your kids hunting.